The Cotswolds

A Cultural History

Jane Bingham

The Cotswolds

A Cultural History

Jane Bingham

Description

With its gentle hills and timeless villages, the Cotswold countryside is a vision of natural beauty and rural calm, but it is also a region rich in history. In this new addition to the Landscapes of the Imagination series, Jane Bingham offers an intriguing portrait of the Cotswolds over the centuries, ranging from ancient stone circles and ruined Roman villasto the Cotswolds today, a picturesque destination spot popular with country-weekenders, tourists, and celebrities. Readers will visit fine churches and manor houses that have survived from the Middle Ages, and tour a landscape still bearing the scars of the Civil War. The home of kings and nobles since Saxon times, the region is famous for its elegant estates, such as Blenheim Palace--England's grandest stately home--while signs of the early industrial age can be seen in its mills and factories. Artists, musicians, and writers were also drawn to this rural paradise, from William Shakespeare and William Morris to T.S. Eliot and Ralph Vaughn Williams. Bingham captures it all in her charming portrait of this glorious spot in the heart of southern England.

The Cotswolds

A Cultural History

Jane Bingham

Table of Contents

IntroductionA Country Made of Men's VisionsLooking at the Land (); The History of the Cotswolds (); Changing Views: Commentators on the Cotswolds (); Living Landscape or Heritage Park? (); Recent Views: Behind the Pretty Pictures (); The Insiders' View (); Imagination and Images (); Responses to the Landscape ()

Chapter OneAncient Echoes: From Prehistory to the Coming of the Anglo-SaxonsExploring Belas Knap (); Tombs from the Stone Age (); At the Rollright Stones (); Bronze-Age Survivals (); Clues from the Celts (); Remembering the Romans (); Tracing the Ancient Ways (); After the Romans (); Anglo-Saxon Echoes ()

Chapter TwoFinding God in Gloucestershire: Saints, Churches and ClericsEarly Abbeys and the Boy Saint of Winchcombe (); Sacred Sites and Saxon Sculptures (); Norman Churches and Carvings (); Stories on Walls (); Woolgothic Wonders (); The End of the Abbeys (); Fame and Fraud at Hailes Abbey (); Visitors at the Rectory: Jane Austen and John Wesley (); John Keble at Eastleach (); Non-Conformism: A Different Way of Worship (); Selsey Church: Pre-Raphaelite Showcase (); What Next? ()

Chapter ThreeLiving off the Land: Sheep, Crops and StoneWealth from Wool (); Fields, Commons and Walls (); Good Times and Bad Times for Farmers (); Experiments and Communities: Charterville and Whiteway (); Old Mont of Enstone: A Life on the Land (); Farming Today: Super-stars and Strugglers (); The Stone and the Magician: Quarries and Quarrymen (); Using the Stone: Stonemasons and Dry-stone Wallers (); Building Today: The Tradition Continues ()

Chapter FourThe Cotswolds at War: Battlefields, Memories and MemorialsThe Civil War Begins: The Battle of Edgehill (); Fighting on the Edge: The Battle of Lansdown (); A Region at War (); Damage and Confusion (); The Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold: The End of the Fighting (); Images of Cavaliers: Stow-on-the-Wold and Swinbrook (); The Burford Levellers (); Two World Wars (); Bertie, May and Mrs. Fish in Wartime (); Modern Times ()

Chapter FivePosh Cotswolds: Royalty, Aristocracy and CelebritiesWoodstock Palace: Kings and Queens in the Forest (); Minster Lovell and a Dreadful Doom (); Sudeley Castle and the Tudors (); Blenheim Palace: England's Grandest Stately Home (); Marlboroughs, Vanderbilts and Churchills (); Dyrham Park and The Remains of the Day (); Chastleton and Stanway: Houses with Memories (); New Owners for Old Homes ()

Chapter EightSeeking the Simple Life: Arts and Crafts at Sapperton and Chipping CampdenBack to the Land: In Search of a Rural Alternative (); Gimson and the Barnsleys: The Start of a Dream (); Pinbury Park: A Workshop in the Woods (); Settling in at Sapperton (); Ernest Gimson: Master Designer (); Ashbee's Vision: The Start of the Guild of Handicrafts (); Creating Camelot: The Guild at Chipping Campden (); Good Years for the Guild (); The End of the Dream (); Chipping Campden Today ()

Chapter TenA Cotswold Life: Laurie Lee in the Slad ValleyLees in the Valley (); Scenes from Slad (); After Rosie (); Return to Slad (); A Child in the Valley (); The Return of the Native? (); Slad Today ()